Life as a Female Golf Course Owner: Gilda Johnson

By Tom Lang

Gilda Johnson has two grown children – and what she calls a third child that’s still maturing – called Lake Forest Golf Club, a public facility in Ann Arbor.

In the late 1990s, Johnson, who was born and raised in Argentina, became the owner and operator of the business after her husband built the course but had no interest in running it. At the time she was in corporate banking having earned BA and MBA degrees from the University of Michigan.

She said the married couple looked at each other and realized it would be her running the operation, even with a newborn girl and two-year-old boy at home.

“When you build a business, no matter what kind, you really need someone with skin in the game to oversee the growth and figure out what your playbook will be,” said Johnson, who is one of about 15 percent of women course owners in Michigan. “The next thing I know I went from putting together multi-million-dollar national banking deals in 1999 to running a golf course.”

She reminds people that the late 1990s was a boon for golf growth, and the market was highly saturated in that region. Shortly after came 9/11 and she said fathers were choosing to stay at home more to be with their younger children, rather than play as much golf.

“So, when you come into a market like that you have to figure out where you’re going to be,” Johnson said. “You can carve out a niche for yourself and that was my first order of business, to figure out what kind of business I would like.

“In Washtenaw County, it’s almost a given just to survive, your golf course has to be pretty good, or people are going to vote with their dollars and go somewhere else. But you can still be one of the best golf courses and become a commodity and commodities don’t do that well. The differentiating factors such as service, providing a community and bringing people together make the difference.”

Neither of her children had interest in joining the staff at Lake Forest, but her son is studying for his PhD in animal behavior, which she says grew out of his love for doing surveys on animals and birds at the golf course. So, enjoying nature as part of golf got him into the environmental aspects of the land.

While owning and operating a golf course was never in Johnson’s wildest dreams growing up as a tennis player, she is forever grateful for the business.

“You meet wonderful people, it’s a great game, and it’s really a way to bring people together,” Johnson said. “Today it’s very important for everybody to see golf as an opportunity to come together with family and friends. You don’t have to be a good golfer, but just enjoy being outside. 

“It’s been interesting and fun and became like my third child – but one that’s never going to grow up, unfortunately.”